Weekend preview: Maryland volleyball to face Coastal Carolina, Princeton, Howard

Maryland volleyball (4-2) comes home to College Park for the first time this season for the Maryland Tournament, hosting Coastal Carolina (2-4) on Friday and Princeton (2-1) on Saturday, before heading to D.C. to face Howard (3-3).

The Terps are coming off their second-straight winning weekend, going 2-1 at the Kristen Dickmann Invitational. They started the weekend hot, defeating Old Dominion 3-0 and Utah Valley 3-1, but were swept by the host Navy most recently on Sunday.

Senior setter Sydney Dowler had a huge weekend, recording 108 assists alongside eight kills. This pushed Dowler over the 2,500 career assist threshold, making her the sixth player in program history to reach that feat. Dowler received Big Ten Setter of the Week honors for her performances for just the second time in her career.

“[Dowler] feels like she has good weapons around her right now,” coach Adam Hughes said. “One of the things we’ve been talking about the last couple of weeks is making sure we have offense coming from a variety of places … [Dowler’s] doing a good job for us but realistically she’s just happy she’s got arms.”

Senior outside hitter Sam Csire led the way in kills with 26 on the weekend, including 16 in the win over Utah Valley.

Game one of the Terps’ weekend will come against Coastal Carolina at 6 p.m. on Friday.

The Chanticleers are off to a slow 2-4 start, with their lone wins coming against Elon and TCU. The match against the Terps will be their second of the day, so fatigue could play a factor in this one. Coastal Carolina dropped the back-end of a doubleheader on its first day of matches this season.

A major bright spot for the Chanticleers has been freshman setter Jalyn Stout, who does a little bit of everything on the court. She leads the team in kills (85) and is second in assists (92) and digs (69). In their last match against Georgia, Stout recorded her fifth straight double-double with six kills, 16 assists and 12 digs against Georgia last Saturday.

Stout isn’t the only setter to watch out for, as junior Cagla Bengi notched a career-high 31 assists earlier this season against Charlotte. Bengi leads Coastal Carolina with 114 assists.

After taking on Coastal Carolina, the Terps will host Princeton on Saturday at 2:30 p.m.

The Tigers opened their season last weekend with Saturday wins against Niagara and Bucknell before falling 3-0 in home opener on Tuesday to Santa Clara.

Freshman setter Sydney Draper had a major impact on Princeton’s two weekend wins. She recorded double-doubles in both matches with 37 assists and 11 digs against Niagara and 29 assists and 10 digs against Bucknell. This earned Draper Ivy League Rookie of the Week honors.

The Terps will travel just 20 minutes south for their final match of the weekend at Howard.

Howard finished 1-2 at the Wolfpack Invitational last weekend to bring their season record to .500 after a 2-1 start to its season. Its lone victory of the weekend came against Winthrop in five sets after bouncing back from a 2-0 set deficit.

The Bison offense is headlined by sophomore outside hitter Rya McKinnon. The reigning Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Player of the Year leads the team in kills (109) and has recorded four double-doubles this season.

The meeting against Maryland will cap off Howard’s three-match weekend.